Juggling

As mentioned in the last blog entry, time management is an essential skill for any successful court reporter. The question becomes, how do we juggle ALL of the high-priority cases that land in our laps?

For example... I'm currently in a private-pay only situation - which means technically no appellate deadlines. That's good. But I'm also trying to meet self-imposed ones; I want to provide good service to the captive audience that are the parties to any cases an official reporter takes down.

To my mind, the best way to handle any situation is to write it down. When you can visualize where you are, you can project out to where you need to be.

I have a white board. It lists the cases, when taken, when ordered, how many pages - and who's handling it. I have a scopist and two proofreaders, so I can tell where they are at certain stages. It's very helpful.

Be realistic in your time estimates. I like to be "Scotty" from StarTrek. I estimate long - most of the cases I have now I estimated five weeks on (I was in trial for two - see my last post) and I just didn't see myself getting them done faster - and then if I come in early, I've "worked a miracle" just like Scotty did.

And now there's some good news. One of the files is in final edit stage already. Another of the files (the long one) is already off to the proofer on volume one, my scopist has the last day, and I'm working on the middle. Things are progressing nicely. Of course, today I got a call for another transcript.

Where are those white board pens??